


Textures

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Child Soldier, Gen, Reference to parental death, minor Davits Draven, minor Jyn Erso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 14:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19200826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: A series of little glimpses into things Cassian Andor has touched, and times he was aware of textures.





	Textures

**Author's Note:**

> For Week two, day four of Celebrate Rogue One 2019; prompts, Cassian and texture.

**Scratchy**

When he first began needing to shave, a scrawny adolescent already more used to any name but his own, he was appalled.  He was still able to go anywhere, passing as a boy; people blanked on the smooth cheeks and baby-face, if they looked at him at all they saw just another kid, no-one to take seriously.  Now, he knew, adulthood would take away that anonymity by steady degrees. 

It was good, in that it meant he’d survived this long.  But he was undercover and mid-mission, and had to stay hidden till he could complete his task.

Teaching himself to shave brought back a picture of watching his father at the long mirror in the ‘fresher.  Papa used to shave his throat and trim his beard, and every time when he’d finished he would pat the edges of his moustache with a fingertip to neaten them.  He’d longed to be old enough to grow a moustache too.  Now he was fourteen and instead of celebrating his beard coming in, he had to shave it off, carefully, so carefully, and keep his face bland as a child’s for another six months.   

When he got home, Draven took one look and reassigned him to an adult briefing.

He started to grow out a beard.  It came scruffy and scratchy at first but still made him look like his father.  He denied the memory again, and walked unshaven into the years of manhood, with no expectation that they would be long.

**Smooth**

The blaster was as familiar in his hand as a pair of boots or a tin mug, just one more useful object that he handled every day without a moment’s thought.  A thing habitual as the muscle memory of cleaning one’s teeth.  The durasteel of the barrel was silken to the touch with wear, the butt worn to a shape that fitted his hand perfectly.  The trigger action was smooth and clean, calibrated to an exact degree.  He could disassemble, clean and reassemble it blindfold, one-handed, while answering random questions or enduring pain-training.

He had worn it, carried it, slept with it; an extension of his own arm, and the reach of the Alliance, armed.  He had never allowed himself to consider whether he loved it, or loathed it. 

**Soft**

There was Rodian seedless melon for dessert.  Somehow the mess had got hold of a whole crate of them.  A fat slice was dispensed to each person who held out their tray, and the air was full of its fruity honey-scent.  He stuck out his plate for a piece without a moment’s thought, because sweet things were a rarity, and the melon was fresh and nutrient-rich.

He wasn’t aware of ever having tasted it before.  But the firm flesh gave against his teeth, crisp and then juicy, with a succulent tenderness that stopped his heart.  It was the texture of ghosts in his mouth, and the sweet juice was suddenly bitter as tears.  And he still couldn’t remember when he’d eaten it before.

**Sticky**

The residue of blood dried slowly on his hands.  He had nothing to wipe it away and the air was too cold.  Almost an hour later, when he reached the gap in the fence and slipped through, his fingers were still sticky with it.

The first time that had happened, another being’s death clinging still wet on him, he’d had to fight not to throw up.  A death, a death on his hands, and he would never be clean again. 

Yet it takes only a few minutes in the sonic, to remove every trace, the colour and the smell, and the gummy, sticky residue, and the way it got under his nails and into his nailbeds, into the creases of his knuckles and the very whorls of his fingerprints.  All gone again.  As clean as he would ever be, now, this far in.

**Gritty**

The outer wall of his quarters on the new base was the outer wall of the pyramid itself.  Pale brown stone, cool and faintly damp to the touch, the surface slightly gritty.  It might once have been carved, he thought.  There were regular marks all the way along, just above eye level.  They repeated, a sequence, but his fingertips couldn’t decode it.  Abstract?  Or an inscription? 

Some of the carving was still crisp to the touch, so that he imagined blades chiselling it, trying to leave a message for all time.  Most of it had worn away over the centuries.  He wondered what it might once have said.  But like him, like all the beings he directed and controlled in his new role as Fulcrum, it no longer had any story of its own.

**Sandy**

Cassian didn’t remember passing out.  Only, that the huge fiery whiteness was almost upon him, and he wasn’t alone; and there was sand under his nails.  And pain everywhere, there was that too. 

He’d told himself he’d be content, he’d be ready, that he’d been ready for this for as long as he could remember and it would be alright.  But it wasn’t alright at all and he didn’t want to die, and the white blast wave surged forward, so fast, so fast.  Jyn was clinging to him and the air smelled of burnt ozone and the collapse of worlds, her shirt was soft and her arms were strong, and the sand was there, irritant and comfort in one, tiny real sensations keeping him alive a moment longer. 

Everything turned black and he thought _I wish_ ; and then nothing more.

There was still sand under his nails when he came to, but the darkness and the fire were gone.  Instead of the stink of death there was a familiar smell of first-aid patches, and sweaty humans.  The surface he lay on vibrated minutely with the purr of an engine.

There was something else touching him too; a hand holding one of his.  Also sandy, and very warm. 

He opened his eyes.


End file.
